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Summary

Description

1858, redesigned and extended, circa 1885, incorporating earlier fabric. 2-storey, gabled, U-plan Germanic house. Stugged and coursed granite with polished dressings; base course. Corbel course dividing floors and partially jettied 1st floor. Timber mullions and transoms.

N (entrance) elevation: 3-bay. Gabled stone porch at centre with stop-chamfered arrises and pointed-arch doorway (2-leaf, panelled door), narrow window on return to right. Bay to right with bipartite at ground and 1st floor window breaking eaves in gabled dormerhead with swept eaves. Bay to left advanced with bipartite at ground and tripartite at 1st floor.

E elevation: 3-bay, symmetrical. Slightly advanced gabled bay at centre with tripartite at ground and bipartite in gablehead. Narrow bipartites in flanking bays at ground, (right, blind).

W elevation: advanced gable of main house to left with blind arrowslit and narrow window at ground and corbelled, raised chimneybreast at 1st floor. Single window to harled elevation of rear wing.

S elevation: gabled wing to left with raised, battered chimneybreast and ashlar-coped skews (probably 1850); gable to right with small window at centre flanked by blind arrowslits, 1st floor bipartite window. Door at centre in advanced flat-roofed porch.

Large-pane glazing in casement windows; 2 12-pane sash and case to rear W wing. Drop pendant timber brackets to deeply overhanging eaves. Graded grey slates to shallow pitched roof. Scroll-flanked kingposts to principal gables. Cusp-headed barge boards to dormerhead and buckle quoin barge boards to porch. Coped gablehead and ridge stacks.

Statement of Special Interest

B Group with Eagle House and Kennels.

The Archives tell that a cottage was enlarged and repaired in 1850 for John Grant, at The Croft. In January 1858 it was reported that Smith had adapted the plan for a cottage at Birkhall to be used at The Croft, but the Keeper of the Privy Purse said that a house of seven rooms with fireplaces and a large attic was too big for a gamekeeper. In May 1858 Dr Robertson reported that the house was likely to be ready in August. In January 1859 the cost of the house was estimated at £1,007.6.0; the carpenter was Watson, the slater Innes, the plumber Farquhar and Gill, the plasterer Mitchell, and the mason Beaton. The current building is a diminutive version of Baile-na-Coille, 1877, and may have been John Brown's earlier home. The Kennels and Eagle House to SE of The Croft are listed separately. An important example of the Germanic designs across the estate, well detailed, with supporting ancillaries, kennels and Eagle House.

References

Bibliography

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